Once Again
by Glinda
Summary: Of missing pieces and healing... A new series friendship fic...


inchoate in-KOH-it, adjective:  
1. In an initial or early stage; just begun.  
2. Imperfectly formed or formulated. 

beneficence buh-NEFF-i-suhns, noun:  
1. The practice of doing good; active goodness, kindness, or charity.  
2. A charitable gift or act.

Note: A post-regeneration fic...minor spoilers for the original series...

**Once Again**

Regeneration always brings a period of instability. It's supposed to be undertaken in a quiet, peaceful place with adequate periods of meditation before and afterwards to allow the mind to adjust to the shock of change. In all his 900 plus years he's only been remotely prepared or even ready for the change once. The first time. And no-one's first time is ever exactly anxiety free. He's always felt sorry for his companions who experienced the transition period. The clothes always seem to be symbolic for him. His way of distancing himself from the person who he used to be, until he's worked out the differences in personality and ability that go with the new body. It seems to help his companions separate the new him from the old in their heads. Ben and Polly had never had all that much confidence in the new him and were positively relieved to get home. The Time Lords had removed Jamie and Zoe's memories of their adventures with him so he'd never know how they would have coped with it. He landed in UNIT's tender care after that regeneration and for the next one, so at least Sarah-Jane had been fore-warned. Tegan, Nyssa and Adric had treated him as though he were ill (which in fairness he had felt) and were accordingly worried. Poor Peri had had the worst of it though. He'd said and done some horrible things to her in the aftermath of the change. Mel had, well, never really adapted to the lifestyle and left him on the ice-world where he'd found Ace. He wondered how Ace would have taken to a new him. Probably just had a good shouting match with him till they figured out who he was again. Grace hadn't had a clue what she was seeing, doctors don't tend to take well to dead patients getting up with new faces. Last time he'd been alone. It had taken so long to find himself that time. He'd wandered like a waif through time for months, maybe years, he wasn't entirely sure. Alone in the silence of his mind, he'd wandered through Earth's history. Feeling more of a kinship with the planet than ever before. Protecting it out of a strange kind of gratitude that it was still there. Somehow surviving against all the odds. Bit like him really. There had been so much Dalek interference on this little back-water planet yet, there it stood beneath his feet, spinning through time and space. He hadn't been lying when he told the Nestene consciousness that he couldn't save any of the planets destroyed in the Time War. He'd tried even though he knew he would fail. So many worlds had burned or never been. Countless beautiful worlds and fragile lives that had touched or brightened his long life had ceased to be in the blink of an eye. He couldn't save any of them, yet deep in his soul lay the guilty knowledge that if he could only have saved one then he'd have saved Earth. The planet that, if he counted up the years, he'd probably spent more time on than he'd spent on Gallifrey. So he'd clung to it desperately as though it could take the place of the many missing pieces of himself.

He'd often wondered, in darker moments, about the sentience level of planets themselves. Did they know how hard he'd fought to save them. Did they have hopes and dreams for the peoples that evolved on or colonised their surfaces? Did the dead shells of those he destroyed or failed to save remember and hate him for it? He didn't like to think about it: there are some thoughts that even Time Lords shy away from. On those rare occasions he did, he saw her as a gift from the Earth. One planet's way of saying thanks for everything and everyone he'd ever sacrificed for its continued existence. It had given him someone to help him find the lost pieces of himself and heal the wounds where they'd once been. The planet had led him to two of it's children from almost 3000 years apart, both searching for something.

Then there were Daleks. And they were all lost again. Just when he was starting to put himself back together properly, he'd regenerated. Once again struggling to work out who he was now. He takes her back to Earth because that's where the answers always are. Hopes they can both find what they're looking for, or at least figure out which way they need to go in search of it. Hoping that this beautiful planet he's never called home will grant him one final act of charity.


End file.
